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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Promethean Announces iKeepSafe Student Data Privacy Certification in the U.S. for ClassFlow Software

 Promethean®, a leading global education technology company, today at TCEA 2021 announced its ClassFlow™ platform had received iKeepSafe certification renewal. The certifications for FERPA, COPPA, and California (Student Privacy – CSPC) mean that ClassFlow has been assessed by iKeepSafe and meets iKeepSafe’s rigorous standards. iKeepSafe assesses and certifies for compliance with U.S. federal and state privacy laws, helping to eliminate privacy concerns during remote, hybrid, or in-person teaching.

Promethean’s ClassFlow enhances remote learning as a cloud-based lesson delivery service with advanced collaboration tools for student engagement. ClassFlow keeps remote, hybrid, and in-person students interested in interactive lessons, activities, quizzes, and thousands of immersive resources, lessons, and activities from educators worldwide. It also helps teachers deliver dynamic lessons to students’ devices and brings interactive classroom displays to life for effective hybrid learning. As ClassFlow is cloud-based, it can be accessed anytime and anywhere.

iKeepSafe privacy certifications ensure that edtech products are compliant and demonstrate responsible privacy, safety, and security practices. ClassFlow received the following certifications:…Read More

Promethean Partners with Radix to Expand Device Management and Security

Today at FETC 2021, Promethean®, a leading global education technology company, announced a premium device and application management solution for the seamless management of virtually any device in a school’s technology ecosystem. This new offering is the result of focused efforts between Promethean and Radix, a cutting-edge device management solution provider. This solution will directly reduce IT administrators’ work time and introduce new opportunities for efficient centralized remote control of devices, including the Promethean ActivPanel® Elements Series from a single web console.

As classrooms have seen rapid evolution over the last year, new guidelines required schools to quickly transform educational settings for remote and hybrid learning. This resulted in a proliferation of new edtech devices within educational ecosystems that were already complex. Managing all these devices and keeping them secure in hybrid and remote learning environments has never been more important.

Promethean Panel Management simplifies device management by deploying mass updates, grouping devices, and setting ActivPanel® Elements Series configurations. With the implementation of Radix VISO, users can greatly expand management to cover prior generations of ActivPanels and the ever-growing number of other devices within schools. Radix VISO device management and Promethean Panel Management together deliver comprehensive device management, allowing IT teams to manage growing infrastructures more efficiently while improving security and ensuring a seamless user experience.…Read More

Yamaha CS-700 Video Sound Bar Now Available With Promethean Collaboration Tool

Yamaha Unified Communications is partnering with Promethean Interactive Displays and DisplayNote to outfit conference rooms with a three-for-one enterprise-grade plug-and-play collaboration tool. Exclusively available from Promethean, the display system simplifies meetings, making them more productive than ever before. It provides conference and collaboration spaces with high-quality, professional audio, video, and meeting room software. Featuring Yamaha’s award-winning CS-700 all-in-one Video Sound Bar, Promethean’s ActivPanel™ Titanium Pro, and DisplayNote Launcher application, the solution is fast and simple to deploy, set up, and operate.

“Think of this system as your next enhanced collaboration solution, bringing together three of the industry’s leaders in interactivity and superior communication,” said Michelle Baeza director strategic partnerships, Yamaha Unified Communications, Inc. “Our solution is affordable, easy to deploy and operate, providing organizations with everything they need to launch a collaborative meeting with one touch.”

Engineered from the ground up leveraging Yamaha’s years of audio and UCC expertise, the CS-700 Video Sound Bar integrates an adaptive beamforming microphone array for perfectly captured conversation; four Yamaha speaker elements to provide the highest degree of audio intelligibility; and a wide-angle HD camera that captures guests and the room in clear detail. The solution eliminates the inherent inefficiencies of operating disparate video and audio during calls and the eye sore of cables snaked around the room.…Read More

Promethean Joins Google for Education Partner Program

Global education technology provider, Promethean®, announced that it has become a Google for Education Partner, integrating its ClassFlow® software with Google Classroom rostering, Google Drive, and Google Single sign-on.

ClassFlow® is a cloud-based lesson delivery software with advanced collaboration tools that empower student engagement. ActivPanel® is an interactive display series that delivers innovation and ease of use that matters to teachers and students and provides the security and manageability trusted by school IT professionals and administrators.

Promethean products work well on Chrome OS™ operating system environments, offering customers intuitive educational solutions that promote student-teacher interactivity, productivity, and engagement. Key features include:…Read More

ClassFlow launches new teacher-parent communication app

ClassFlow Moments, a new free app for teacher-parent communication, is the latest addition to Promethean’s collaborative learning software ClassFlow. With the ClassFlow Moments app, teachers can easily share classroom assignments, announcements, and awards with parents so they can proactively engage with their students’ learning. ClassFlow Moments is free for parents.

“Most parents can identify with asking their children about school and receiving a one-word answer,” said Vincent Young, the Chief Marketing Officer at Promethean. “ClassFlow Moments offers a new way for teachers to connect parents to their students’ classroom activities. As teachers assign homework or reward students with award badges in ClassFlow, they can easily alert parents at the same time. The parent-student conversation after school then shifts to ‘Tell me how you earned a badge for excellent class participation today,’ or ‘What ideas interest you for your science project?’ With the ClassFlow Moments app, students receive additional support from their family to reinforce their education.”

According to a report from the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL), “Programs and interventions that engage families in supporting their children’s learning at home are linked to higher student achievement.” Using the ClassFlow Moments app, teachers can bring parents and guardians into the learning process by sharing classroom content directly from ClassFlow – the hub where they direct classroom activities, deliver lessons, launch quizzes and interactive polls, and send out homework assignments.…Read More

Free software helps fuel digital instruction

ClassFlow is a software program that ties together lesson planning, instruction, and assessment—creating a more personalized, collaborative learning environment

classflow-software
ClassFlow is free for individual teachers, but Promethean will be selling an enterprise version for schools and districts.

While technology is having an impact in the classroom, teaching with technology is often a fragmented process, especially in “bring your own device” classrooms or other environments where not everyone is using the same device or platform.

Now, a new software program from Promethean aims to simplify teaching with technology—regardless of what devices teachers or their students are using.

Called ClassFlow, the software was introduced in a beta version earlier this year. It’s a cloud-based platform that helps teachers create and deliver lessons in a digital environment.…Read More

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New ed-tech service aims to boost parent engagement

Parents can follow a daily link to watch the same videos that their children watched in class and see how their children did on assignments.

A simple text message could clue in parents to the perfect conversation starters with their kids: The Parent Connection, a new feature of Channel One News InterActiv (C1Ni), sends parents messages about what their children learned in school that day in an effort to strengthen the home-school connection.

C1Ni, an interactive video program that allows teachers to pause a Channel One News broadcast and work through accompanying lessons with students on Promethean ActivBoards, launched a year ago as a collaborative effort between Channel One News and Promethean.

The new Parent Connection feature, introduced this summer during the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in San Diego, sends an eMail or text message to parents who sign up, with a link to the Channel One News InterActiv (C1Ni) video their child watched in school that day.…Read More

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A growing trend in school AV solutions: Convergence

Interactive whiteboard makers are releasing projectors, and projector makers are releasing student response systems.

School audio-visual solutions seem to be converging, with major suppliers of AV products releasing their own versions of solutions offered by competitors in an effort to keep pace. Interactive whiteboard makers are releasing projectors, and projector makers are releasing student response systems—making nearly every supplier a one-stop shop for presentation tools.

For instance, ELMO USA now offers a student response system (SRS), which it demonstrated at the Florida Educational Technology Conference in January . Available in 24- or 32-unit bundles, ELMO’s SRS devices operate on the 2.4GHz radio frequency, with a range of about 50 feet. The software that drives the system works on Windows XP, Vista, or 7 computers.

In another example of this convergence, Promethean unveiled its own version of an interactive tabletop surface at FETC, the ActivTable. Like other companies’ interactive tables, it’s aimed at elementary and special-needs students in particular—but it includes several unique features as well.…Read More

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Technology takes formative assessment to a whole new level

The technology gives teachers the ability to do handheld formative assessment in real time.
The technology gives teachers the ability to do handheld formative assessment in real time.

Student response system (SRS) technology has caught on in classrooms nationwide as a tool for boosting class participation, as well as helping teachers ensure that students understand what’s being taught before they move on to another concept. But the current generation of the technology has its limitations.

For one thing, the lag time between student responses kills the pace of learning, says Promethean Director Tony Cann. In a typical use of the technology, the teacher poses a question to the entire class, then pauses as students answer the question on their personal “clicker” devices. This results in a lot of waiting around—time that could be put to better use.

Another problem is that students see, and answer, the same question as their peers. For students who already understand the material and are ready to move on, this can be a tedious process—and teachers risk losing their interest.…Read More

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